| richardhutnik said: In regards to Kerry, he did use reference to Cheney's daughter in the debate in the 2004 election: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-14-lynne-cheney_x.htm There is a reality of a fault line in GOP support between Libertarian free market individuals, who side with Rand, and the socially conservative evangelical base, which has issues with Rand. That is the main focus of the discussion here. If you want to argue over it, you are splitting nits and missing the main point I discuss. |
Ah. I guess I don't remember Kerry making that particular scumbag statement because it was overshadowed by Edwards bringing up Mary to Cheney's face, making some patronizing statement about how great it was that Cheney didn't kick his own daughter out of the family just because she was a dyke, and Cheney basically told him to go fuck himself.
Maybe it's your peculiar writing style, but I have to confess that I often have a hard time telling just what it is you're trying to discuss sometimes. It usually seems like you're just banging on about whatever happens to be the left blogosphere's talking point of the day, and I suspect that's the case here since it's been ThinkProgress who has been trying to make this into some kind of huge story. Then anything I say to the contrary is met with general displeasure and claims that I'm going off topic, which may be true but a conversation is a pretty organic thing. But sure, there has always been a potential fault line in the GOP. The Democrats actually had some success with exploiting this in the Bush years and especially in 2008, though not by luring SoCons away but the libertarians who were so fed up after Bush's shitty presidency that they bought what Obama was selling. It seemed like about half the writers at the very, very libertarian Reason voted for Obama, although they've been mugged by reality ever since.
I doubt very strongly that the Democrats would have much success with courting the religious right, though, because even if they might be susceptible to the argument that Jesus would want the government to take care of the poor (and a lot of them don't buy this at all, believing instead that it's an individual responsibility to do so), I think the abortion deal will always remain a dealbreaker. Not to mention the fact that the cultural left could never hide their visceral contempt for the religious right long enough to seal such a deal, anyway.
As for Olasky, I can understand why he philosophically disagrees with Rand. But from a practical governing perspective, not so much. Rand believed that taking from one person and giving to another is fundamentally immoral. Olasky doesn't believe it's immoral, but he does believe that government welfarism simply doesn't work and in fact wrote a very influential book on the subject. As far as I can tell, that doesn't exactly give him or those like him much of a reason to switch parties.
